Some signs of progress on ‘D’

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This article was published 26/10/2014 (4033 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE battle continues to get the Winnipeg Jets to be a better defensive team.

There are small signs of progress. Despite a 2-5 record, only once in the first seven games of their NHL season have the Jets given up more than 30 shots on goal.

But they continue to misread plays and make mistakes that assist quality opponents in burning them, such as in Friday’s 4-2 home loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The team has given up 20 goals so far, not far off its historically untenable average.

On the flip side, the Jets have had a horrible time scoring goals. They have just 13 in seven games and six of them came in an opening-night win.

Still, they had 42 shots at Tampa Bay’s Ben Bishop on Friday and while saying they outplayed the Lightning might be a bit of a reach, the even-strength shots on goal were 28-26 Winnipeg and there were ample opportunities to score.

“There is some good offence by our team that’s not being converted into goals,” head coach Paul Maurice said Saturday after coaching up another storm at practice at the MTS Iceplex.

“(But)… are you generating that offence at the expense of defence?”

X’S AND O’S 101: The teaching continued at practice Saturday as Maurice kept on the theme of reads and positional play as the avenue to a better goals ratio, which currently stands at minus-seven.

“We gave up some good chances in that (Tampa) game and some of that is directly due to their skill level,” he said. “We just didn’t have enough solid positional play.

“Two-pass two-on-one, you never like to see that. Because your goaltender’s got no chance of making that play,” he said, quite possibly referring to a first-period Steven Stamkos-Jonathan Drouin combination that resulted in Stamkos’s sixth goal of the season.

So far, the coach is staying on the positive side of it, declining to single out individuals for mistakes.

“We want to make sure we’re owning all of them without crushing the team with, ‘Every mistake is the end of the world,’ ” he said. “But we’re at the high end of shots-for in the NHL from where you want them (taken) and we’re at the low end from where you don’t want them (against). We’re giving up too much.

“Our great challenge here is going to be able to keep that high number of offensive chances and cut down the other.”

Winnipeg is eighth overall in shots for, at 31.6 per game, and sixth-best in shots against per game, at 27.1.

CORMIER SUMMONED: With Anthony Peluso’s continuing unavailability for practice, the Jets decided they couldn’t go on without an extra forward (Evander Kane is still out) and called up Patrice Cormier from the St. John’s IceCaps Saturday.

Cormier has scored twice in the first four games of the AHL season.

A RED FLAG: MTS Centre fans were outraged and angry on Friday at a second-period tripping penalty handed to defenceman Paul Postma.

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It was a hurtful call also because the Lightning scored on the ensuing power play to make it 3-1.

Tampa Bay’s Vladislav Namestnikov tried to get past Postma and when the defenceman pushed him over, he was whistled off. Postma’s stick was between Namestnikov’s legs, but he didn’t twist it, which is frequently called the “can-opener” and almost always called.

“We will look at that call as what can we do to avoid it happening,” Maurice said Saturday, when asked for his opinion. “So the stick in between the legs is a bit of a red flag. I think if the physicality happens earlier on that, it’s just a hit. And then after that, that’s on somebody else.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca